


Words Don't Come Easily

by anna_unfolding, aphelant



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Community: pod-together, F/M, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Podfic, references to past sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 23:26:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_unfolding/pseuds/anna_unfolding, https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphelant/pseuds/aphelant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is going to kill Tony.  Right after he figures out how to get out of there without having to say too much.</p><p><i>“Natasha, what’s the first rule about fight club?” he admonishes, and Natasha laughs, and Phil’s eyebrows go up.  </i>Fuck.  Stop talking, Barton<i>.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Words Don't Come Easily

**Author's Note:**

> This podfic was recorded by aphelant and written by anna_unfolding. Teprometo was the fic beta. Thank you Te for your invaluable help. Seriously. <3
> 
> Thank you, Kalakirya, for the cover art; I love it and I appreciate you lending your talents to our project. <3
> 
> This is only very loosely a “Fuck or Die” fic. Given that I’ve always disliked the trope because of consent issues (among other reasons), I wrote it Very Carefully. Fuck-or-die usually needs a dub-con tag at the very least, but I am not giving one here, because of how the characters handle the situation they find themselves in. Please see end notes for more (slightly spoilery) commentary on how I handled consent. If consent is a trigger issue for you, I highly suggest reading the end notes before continuing. They won't ruin the fic and I would rather everyone stay safe. Feel free to message me for more information.
> 
> Title from Tracy Chapman's _Baby Can I Hold You_.

  


[MP3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2012/A-Words%20Don't%20Come%20Easily.mp3) | [M4B](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2012/A-Words%20Don't%20Come%20Easily%20by%20anna_unfolding,%20aphelant,%20teprometo.m4b)

“I maintain that Stark has no idea what an actual party is,” says Natasha, removing a shoe to run the sharp heel along the panel where the door used to be. “Because his ideas are never all that fun to me.”

Clint raises an eyebrow at Phil, who has put his sunglasses back on and laid back on the bed, arms crossed over his suit.

“How’s that helpful?” Clint asks him, voice laced with judgment, walking into the adjoining bathroom to search for an escape he knows he won’t find.

“Guys?” Phil says, settling into the large square pillows. “This is Stark. And this is the Stark Mansion. I think it’s safe to assume that when JARVIS says the room is secure and locked and there is no escape, that the room is secure, locked, and, you know.” His voice trails off and he takes a sip of the drink he’s brought into the room with him, poured by a very happy Thor downstairs during the part of the party that was more like a party, and less like—well, like being held prisoner inside a bedroom suite at the Stark Mansion.

“Tash,” Clint says from inside the bathroom, in that short way he knows translates to _come here._

The bathroom door pushes open and Clint turns his body sideways, making sure she has room to maneuver in the tiny room. She does a quick 360 with her body, her eyes fixed on the fan over the shower. She nods, and climbs onto the toilet, launching herself up as Clint moves under her automatically, their bodies accustomed to wordlessly meeting each other’s needs, even with alcohol in their systems.

“Yeah, no,” Natasha says above him. “Just an electric air circulator. No duct.” Clint spreads his fingers wider around her ass so as not to bruise any one point on her skin. She’s not wearing underwear. He’s gotten used to touching her with her suit on, and her bare skin under a short white skirt reminds him of their undercover days, before they got a higher profile and had to give up covert ops. He shifts his hands again and puts her down, stepping back and hitting the sink behind him. 

Natasha flashes him a quick smile, the kind she uses to put people at ease, even when _she_ isn’t. “It’s the underwear, right? What’s the matter, Barton? Not used to women anymore since you turned gay for Coulson?” 

Clint once advised Rogers, with as serious a face as he could manage, that figuring Natasha out was easy, because when her eyes flash, she’s always only one of two things: vicious or kidding. _You got a fifty-fifty chance,_ he’d said, as Rogers scowled at him.

But Clint knows her; his odds are considerably better. He can tell she’s teasing but curious. He grips the sink behind him and lets out a huff of a laugh, deflecting. “What about you? Not used to underwear anymore now that you’re off duty?”

In the bedroom, Phil clears his throat. “For the record, Natasha changed her underwear habits when she got the suit two years ago, and Clint did not _turn gay_ for me. Have you ever heard of the Kinsey Report?”

Natasha adjusts her skirt and calls out, “Well, there’s no room for panty lines in that thing. And, uh, have _you_ ever heard of the concept of sexual fluidity? People don’t always stay in one spot, you know.”

“I’m right here,” Clint says quietly, though it’s mostly to remind himself.

“Whatever, yes, people shift,” Phil says, and Clint mouths _Whatever?_ to Natasha, who smirks. Phil continues. “But the vast amount of straight porn he watches is a testament to _something_.”

Natasha makes a delighted face, and Clint squeezes his eyes shut. “Jesus, you guys, can I have any privacy at all?” he mutters as Natasha pats him on the lapels of his suit.

“Apparently not when Thor has plied Coulson with drinks. Sorry,” she says with a shrug, and walks past him to plop down next to Phil on the bed. “Speaking of porn, is there a TV in here?” she asks as she removes her other heel and tosses it onto the floor.

Clint makes a pained sound as he emerges from the bathroom. “We’re not watching or discussing porn at all, here, ever, like,” he says, haltingly, not wanting to say anything that will give either of them any ideas. The only way to win anything with them is to do whatever his job is, do it well, and _stop talking_.

Natasha and Phil are touching shoulders where they sit against the headboard, both of their arms crossed over their chests, and somehow they look so conspiratorial that Clint feels a thin layer of sweat break out on the back of his neck.

“Why _can’t_ we discuss your bi-fabulous porn interests, Barton? It’s not like I don’t remember your type or anything,” Natasha says with a look, and Phil is struggling not to smile, and Clint is going to have a heart attack if this conversation continues.

“Natasha, what’s the first rule about fight club?” he admonishes, and Natasha laughs, and Phil’s eyebrows go up. _Fuck. Stop talking, Barton_.

There are lots of things that Natasha knows about Clint, and other things that Phil knows about Clint, that they don’t _both_ know about Clint, and Clint would kind of like to keep it that way. He shrugs out of his suit jacket and throws it at the bed, heading back to the panel that used to be a door and banging on it pretty hard, hoping that Stark hasn’t already squirreled Rogers and/or Pepper away in some private place for the duration.

Why the hell would Stark have a trap room in his own mansion, and why would he let spy-sassin friends stumble into it, “…and then not _fucking respond_ when we ask to get out?” Clint’s voice rises in irritation and he rolls up his sleeves. 

“He’s doing that thing where he begins in his head, isn’t he?” Natasha says, dipping her mouth towards Phil’s ear. Phil leans closer to her and nods silently, the traitor, and then shuffles around in the drawer of the bedside table. 

“Okay, so there’s a TV remote, you guys, if we can find the TV, and also,” he throws a handful of stuff on the bed. “Condoms.” 

Natasha picks one up. “Stark,” she says, almost fondly, before her voice turns menacing. “Get us out of here. Now.”

“We’ll come after you, Captain America or no,” Clint threatens towards the ceiling.

“Pepper, though,” Natasha points out, scrunching up her nose a little. Clint sighs. Pepper _would_ be hard to work around. Natasha takes the remote from Phil, points it at the wall opposite the bed, and hits some buttons. The LA skyline photograph disappears, and a screen shows Stark moving his mouth as though speaking to the camera, but no sound comes out.

“Unmute it,” Phil says.

“Jesus, I will,” says Natasha. “You’re so bossy when you’re drunk,” she mutters, and suddenly the room is filled with Tony Stark’s voice, in stereo.

“…said you wanted something fun, and you agreed I could make you,” Stark is saying. Clint steps forward so he can see the screen head on. Stark is looking away and smiling, as though he’s thinking of his own personal joke. Then he turns to speak at the camera again, like he’s talking to them. “So, Captain Rogers, this is where I make you.” Stark’s voice dips dangerously low at the words _Captain Rogers_ and then takes an almost obscene turn at _make you_ , and Clint feels an apprehensive tingle run down his neck.

“Is this…” Phil begins.

“…it’s some sort of…” continues Natasha.

“To start with, come sit next to me on the bed.” Stark says on the screen, shrugging his shoulders and patting the comforter. 

Clint winces. “Oh, my God, it totally is.”

Stark continues. “If I’m in the bathroom, tell me to get the hell out of there so you can get on this task.” He puts his hands in his pockets and rocks forward and backwards a couple of times, like he’s waiting for Rogers to obey him, but this is fucking ridiculous, because Rogers isn’t in here, and what the actual fuck.

Clint strides towards the television to turn it off, but there are no buttons anywhere. “Oh, my God, Tash, come _on_ ,” he says, just as Natasha rises onto her knees and furiously hits buttons on the remote.

“I fucking know already; I’m trying,” she says, her voice rising.

Stark’s voice continues. “Okay, good, so you’re next to me now? Good. You know,” he continues, voice low like he’s telling a secret, “this was my first favorite out of everything you suggested on the list, so, Rogers,” Stark says, “here’s the deal, per your request, but by my order. To get out of this room, you’ll have to get off at the hands of another. You don’t get to just spank it and go. No, another living being must do the deed, and your own fingers on the remote means it has to be _you_ who gets off. God, I am, like, the smartest engineer ever. Kink technology. I love myself sometimes. Well. I love myself all the time. But this is especially cool, don’t you think? Took me two months to design.”

Phil sips his drink and chuckles as Natasha lets out a small sound of distress. Clint stands in front of the TV and faces them, pinching the bridge of his nose and then shaking his head, as though trying to rid his brain of the words he just heard. He looks up at Phil, who’s still giggling.

“How in the fuck is hearing Stark’s sex contract with Rogers in any way funny, Coulson?” he asks.

“It’s kind of funny, _Barton,_ ” Phil says with a small shrug. He looks at Natasha. “Isn’t it kind of funny?”

Natasha throws the remote to the bed and punches buttons on her cell phone, but they’ve already tried that. The room must have a signal block.

Stark is still speaking. “Whatever lucky bastard is trapped in this room with you gets to do the deed, and oh, would you look at that; it’s me,” he says in that irritatingly smug voice he uses 90% of the time. “Well, it’s me or it’s Pepper. And trust me, this room’s been configured with the technology to ensure you come before releasing you. The only two ways out of the room are to get off with whoever’s with you, or, of course, safeword out with one of us, and we’ll voice the release code. So, Captain, get to it.”

The screen flickers off.

Natasha eases off the bed slowly, saying something under her breath in Russian, and goes into the bathroom, closing the door.

Clint sits at the foot of the bed and picks up the remote, examining it. “How serious do you think Stark—”

“Oh, I think this situation is legit,” Phil interrupts, and Clint twists to look back at him. “Stark once designed remote monitoring technology to measure the levels of caffeine in the systems of the SHIELD staffers assigned to him, based on their heart rate and number of bathroom trips. Guy’s irritatingly brilliant, and the sooner we all wrap our minds around what’s happening here, the better.”

Clint’s chest feels hot and loose and it almost feels like fear, which is silly because he’s with the only two people in the world that he trusts with his life. _But it’s_ because _it’s them,_ he thinks. And he realizes he is fucking terrified. 

He stands up and holds out his hand. “Give me your drink.”

Phil passes the glass to Clint. “Clint, this can’t be the first time you and Natasha have...” he says, his voice trailing off.

Clint is heading to the bathroom but slips, spilling a little of the drink on the carpet. “What? No! I mean, no.”

Phil is holding his gaze, and Clint tries very hard not to speak. He says, “You thought we were, what, lovers?”

“I didn’t assume anything,” Phil says, his tone reassuring. “I didn’t assume you were, and I didn’t assume you weren’t. I just. Come on.” His look says _please don’t forget I am scary-observant and nothing gets by me, Barton._

Clint waits a moment, and when Phil doesn’t look away, he sighs. “We spent a lot of time together on the road, and then...” he breaks off, runs his free hand through his hair. “And then when we were back at HQ there weren’t a lot of civilians who understood, you know?”

Phil nods. He does know. “I get it.”

“And you know what SHIELD personnel are like,” Clint continues, and Phil rolls his eyes. Clint smiles at him. Then he’s serious again. “We never slept together, though. We just... We just... didn’t make any other friends. Long-lasting ones, I mean.” Clint remembers the bar and the women, and Natasha getting in the way whenever she disapproved of someone Clint was hitting on. She knew how to insinuate herself into that situation; that’s for damn sure. Then again, Clint hadn’t liked every guy who looked at Natasha, and he had gotten rid of some of them pretty effectively, too.

Phil tilts his head, watching Clint. “I don’t believe you,” he says, finally.

Clint sputters. “What?”

“I understand why you’d sleep with Natasha, and I can imagine why you’d stop, but I don’t understand why you think you’d need to lie about it to me.”

_Stop talking,_ Clint’s inner voice chides him, a little too late. He considers Phil’s statement. Phil’s wrong; he never slept with her. But Phil’s also right, because he hasn’t been honest about how much he wanted to. And not just in that obvious _she’s attractive_ way, either. He’d wanted to get to the bottom of what’s between them. He’d wanted it something fierce. And many, many of those bar nights resulted in Clint fucking strangers because he couldn’t have her, not with the job they had to do, and especially not with how deadly she can be when she believes she’s been crossed. 

Clint swallows and takes a sip of Thor’s concoction, deciding as he watches Phil’s gaze roam across his skin to _trust_.

“I wanted to,” he concedes. “But it never came to that. We made out once, undercover. It was…” Clint walks towards the bathroom door and sits against it on the floor with the drink. It’d been awkward; they were young and Natasha was unbelievably dangerous and sexy, and neither of them trusted the other at all. They were planting a bug in the private quarters of the Romanian Embassy in Prague during a society event, when a member of the house staff came down the hallway. Clint had already scanned the room for escape routes, but they had no time to get through the vent.

Natasha pushed him onto the bed, straddling him and leaning forward. He remembers thinking for a second she’d turned on him and was about to kill him. And then her long hair was soft against his face as she pressed her mouth into his neck, moaning too loudly, completely for show, as he brought his hand up to rest on her waist, fingertips hesitant against her bare flesh where the dress dropped low along her back. _Touch me, Barton,_ she’d murmured. He’d touched. He’d touched as much as he could in the minute and a half it took the staff person to fix whatever she was fiddling with in the hall outside their room. And Natasha’s little sounds got softer and softer against his skin and there were things he couldn’t help.

The truth was, Clint had let himself remember the feel of her, and those soft sounds, one time too many in the lonely months after that mission, and had worked very hard to push it out of his mind as _Agent Romanoff_ became _Natasha_ over the countless missions they shared in the subsequent years.

“Clint.” Phil is calling him back from his memory, and Clint looks up from his spot by the bathroom door and swallows. “It’s okay to want her.” Phil rubs the back of his head. “It’s okay with me,” he amends.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure it’s okay with _me_ ,” Clint says, his mouth twisting into a wry smile.

They’re both quiet for a long moment, and then Natasha raps softly on the door. Clint scrambles out of the way, standing up. She opens the door, saying, “Fuck me, why didn’t we all get one of Thor’s special drinks? —Oh, well, thanks,” she finishes, as Clint holds the glass out to her. She takes a sip and leans against the doorframe, head resting on the door jamb. 

“How soon do you think Stark will find out we’re in here and let us out himself?” she asks. Her face is pale and tight; Clint guesses she splashed water on it. 

“We all know Stark will be passed out ‘til late in the afternoon and hung over for another half a day after that,” Phil says from the bed. Clint steps closer to Natasha. 

“Hey, hey,” he says, and she flinches slightly as he raises his hand to lean against the door jamb. But she doesn’t move away. The hair right around her face has little droplets of water in it. He's illogically but ridiculously reassured by having guessed right about the water. “It’s going to be okay,” he says.

She lowers her head against his chest. “Of course it is,” she says into his dress shirt.

“Listen, Tash, just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it,” Clint says, lips against her hair. 

She looks up, smiling, and then calls out over her shoulder. “Is he always this easy, Coulson?”

But Phil isn’t on the bed anymore. He’s sitting on the floor against the foot of the bed with a notebook, sunglasses gone, and he’s scribbling something. “What?” he asks, distractedly. “Oh, come here, both of you.”

Natasha meets Clint’s eyes and he shrugs. They walk to where Phil is sitting. “Sit down,” he says, and it’s like they’ve been called into his office at HQ. Natasha catches Clint’s eye and mouths _bossy drunk._ Clint shakes his head. Phil’s not even close to drunk.

“Sir, we on a mission?” Clint jokes, sitting across from Phil against the wall the screen resides in. Natasha picks the other wall, her legs crossed at the ankles straight in front of her. Clint recalls she’s not wearing underwear and his brain begins to spin.

He lets himself think it outright for the first time. Imagines Natasha pulling her skirt off and crawling up onto the bed in front of him. Allowing him. He closes his eyes so they won’t know. It feels like he’s at the edge of something pretty fucking dangerous, allowing his imagination to unfold like this. It’s going to be hard to forget it once he pursues the fantasy, even in his head. Her skin under his hands, her mouth at his neck. Natasha clears her throat and Clint’s eyes fly open. She’s watching him, and he feels his face heat up.

“Barton, Jesus,” she murmurs, and he wonders if somehow she really can read his mind.

Phil raises his eyebrows, all business suddenly, and they both turn to him, ready. “By my calculations, we’re in here for thirty-six more hours if we wait for Stark, hangovers and sleeping and all that. At some point, though, it’s likely he’ll figure it out or JARVIS will remind him, or Agent Woo will begin making inquiries.”

“Woo keeps tabs on us off the clock?” Natasha asks, picking an ice cube out of the drained glass with her fingers.

Clint knocks his foot against hers. “Not on us; on him. Woo keeps tabs on his work boyfriend. Wouldn’t you be asking around if I didn’t surface after thirty-six hours?” Clint says while Phil scribbles something in the notebook.

“Point,” Natasha says, flinging the dripping ice cube at Clint. He glares at her and she cocks her head, almost smiling.

Clint looks away, loosening his tie and stretching.

“Speak out loud, or I swear to God this is going in the report,” Phil warns without looking up.

“Yes, sir,” Natasha says, almost mocking but not quite. “Agent Barton implied I was his _work girlfriend,_ ” she said, making air quotes, “a term that he’s choosing to use now to lighten the mood surrounding the reality that he and I are going to have sex here pretty soon, which will be a pretty significant change of the status quo.” Clint groans at her casual use of _have sex here pretty soon,_ putting his head into his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. Natasha glares at the interruption and continues. “I threw the ice as a sort of a check in.”

Phil lowers his chin as if to question her methods.

She shrugs. “Sometimes Barton just needs time to wrap his head around a new plan mid-mission. Sir.”

Phil’s not writing anymore. He looks at Clint, waiting. 

Clint shrugs. “More or less.”

“Jesus, you two.” Phil gives a minute shake of his head. “Okay. So there’s no real reason we need to do anything at all. We can make it thirty-six hours. There’s water here.”

“Oh, god,” Clint laughs and nudges Natasha’s foot with his. “Didn’t we make it forty-eight once with a half a can of Coke? Salzburg, right?”

“Mm,” Natasha agrees.

A shadow passes over Phil’s face. “Vienna. It was Vienna. And it was fifty-one hours, twenty-two minutes,” he says, and Clint immediately regrets reminding him. No handler likes radio silence for more than eight hours or so, and that one was further complicated because Clint had come even closer to dying than usual.

The block on their location had cleared after two days, and they'd left their saferoom, a little tired and a little jittery, to pick up the trail on the targets. Coulson—he was still Coulson then—wanted to pull them out but the marks were Hydra informants, and Clint and Natasha convinced him to let them stay on mission. Natasha was on the ground in hand to hand with the mark, Clint in a perch three stories up, waiting for her to give him a clean shot, when a Hydra op took him down from behind. It didn’t take more than thirty seconds for Natasha to know something was wrong. She reached the roof in time to put five bullets in the Hydra op whose gloved hands were ringing the life out of Clint, squeezing his throat and banging his head against the ground.

Clint remembers the weight of the body pressing against his lungs, his three broken ribs sharp with pain, the lack of air. He remembers hearing Natasha call for backup and the heavenly but painful breath of oxygen flooding into him as she kicked the dead Hydra op off his chest. He remembers Coulson’s hand around his in Medical, the antiseptic smell of an IV, and recovering in Phil’s—he’d become Phil that day—apartment the next week. He remembers Phil next to him on the bed in an old Army Rangers t-shirt and boxers, filling out paperwork while Clint watched _So You Think You Can Dance_ and tried not to exacerbate the pain in his ribs by sneaking glances at all that exposed skin. “Stop,” Phil had chided, almost inaudibly, shifting a little. “First, get better.”

Clint offers, “Course, it may well be less than thirty-six hours. Pepper could break us out at any moment, really.”

Natasha frowns, like she thinks that’s pretty unlikely, and tosses an ice cube at Phil.

“Romanoff,” chides Phil. “Keep it in the cup.”

And there’s something familiar in Phil’s demeanor that reassures Clint. Phil’s taking charge, and Phil’s going to set it out for them, what they need to do, and then they will do it, whatever it is.

“Right, well, it could be more than thirty-six hours,” Natasha says. Clint gives her a look. “What? It could be. Didn’t you hear Stark downstairs talking about meeting Pepper in France this week? For all we know, he could take off in the next day or two without noticing at all.”

“Aaaaand he could wake up in the morning and JARVIS might mention it to him and we’re out in eight hours,” Clint says.

Natasha nods. “Okay, and in which of these scenarios does Coulson distract Captain America with a pseudo mission so we can kill Stark slowly? Because fuck Pepper, I have an idea about the arc reactor—”

“Hey,” Phil says softly, and Natasha and Clint look up at him. “It’s past midnight. There’s far too much ice throwing going on,” he says lightly. Then he eyes each of them in turn. “And none of us is actually sober; am I right?” Neither of them protests the assertion. Phil stretches. “I’m calling it for tonight. We make ourselves as comfortable as we can in the bed and sleep. In the morning, _if_ Stark hasn’t let us out, we decide what we want to do.”

Natasha nods, stands, and begins working her bra off underneath her sleeveless blouse as she walks towards the bed. “I call _not_ the middle.” She settles under the covers, her back to the rest of the bed, and before Phil can look back at Clint, Clint puts his finger on his nose.

“Fuck,” Phil says when he sees it.

*

Phil neutrally takes the middle, falling asleep on his back pretty fast. Clint is on his side, staring at the wall, and is about halfway through his sixth mental map exercise of the range targets at HQ when Natasha speaks. “Straight porn, huh?” Clint lets out a little hum. “I am shocked, Clint Barton,” she adds for good measure.

“What, all that time at the Rusty Nail didn’t clue you in?” he asks, countless nights spent buying rounds, hustling people at darts, and playing wingman for each other suddenly fresh in his head.

She laughs, a soft, loose thing, and when she speaks, there’s something strange in her voice. “That was a long time ago.”

“Yes, but there were a lot of women,” he points out. Phil’s body starts in his sleep and he rolls onto his side, toward Clint.

“Mm-hmm,” she agrees. “I did seem to notice, though...” she pauses for a moment, and Clint wishes he could see her. “I did notice none of them were me.”

And at this, he does turn clear over so he’s facing her. She’s on her back now, eyes focused on the ceiling. She turns her head to look at him, and it’s really fucking dark in here, but he can see her neck, her heartbeat pulsing under her skin. She swallows and speaks. “Have you ever wanted me?” She’s holding his gaze, and he knows she’s good at getting the information she needs. She’s Natasha, and the secret to negotiating with her is: don’t. But he has a few strengths of his own.

He swallows and aims for the truth. “You know that I have.”

She pushes up on an arm and leans over Phil, holding Clint’s shoulder and pressing her lips against his. He stops breathing for a moment. Fuck, he’s kissing _Natasha_. She releases his mouth, but then it’s as though she reconsiders, because she comes back in and sucks slightly at the place where his lips meet ‘til he opens and starts breathing again, and she smiles against his mouth.

She pulls back, just an inch, and they’re only touching where she has him by the shoulder. Now his pulse is thudding, too, as she holds very still in front of him, eyes roving over his face. “I’m going to fuck you tomorrow, Clint,” she says, her eyes locking onto his.

He opens his mouth to get more air, and she lets his shoulder go, running a fingertip along his bottom lip and kissing him again, her finger caught between their mouths. He bites at it, and she pulls her hand and then her face away, settling back down on her side of the bed again.

Clint is hard and out of breath, and his blood is so loud in his ears he’s sure the thudding of his heart will wake Phil up any second. He closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he manages, barely more than a whisper.

“But no biting me,” she says, and he can hear her roll onto her side, facing away from them again. “Night,” she says.

When he opens his eyes again, Phil is staring right at him, the flesh below his bottom lip caught between his teeth, his eyes glittering.

Clint swallows. “Night, Tash,” he says, not breaking eye contact with Phil, and then, softer, “Night, babe.”

The bed shakes slightly, like Natasha is laughing, and Phil’s mouth twists into a closed-lipped smile. “Fuck you both,” he says without rancor, and he kisses Clint where Natasha’s mouth just was. “Seriously,” he says, settling his head back on the pillow. “Just. Fuck you both.”

*

No one sleeps well. Clint’s not actually sure he sleeps much at all, and when he hears Phil writing something on the other side of the room at an ungodly hour, he’s actually relieved to give up the losing battle of trying to rest.

“You’re gonna solve this with paperwork, aren’t you?” he accuses, propping himself up on an elbow and then letting a stretch overtake his body. On the other side of the bed, Natasha lets out a long sigh in her sleep but doesn’t stir.

Phil glances up briefly and then returns to his paper. “You look good,” he says quietly. A familiar warm tingle of anticipation runs through Clint’s body; it’s not often Phil responds to Clint when there’s paperwork in front of him. When he does, it usually results in Clint having a fucking fantastic morning.

That’s the other thing that makes this awkward. _Because it totally wouldn’t be otherwise,_ Clint jokes to himself. Phil hasn’t actually been well enough for sex ‘til quite recently. There was the open-heart surgery recovery, obviously, and then six weeks of physical therapy, and then Clint was sent with Rogers to Germany for some post-op mitigation. They only started anything heavy a week ago, and it’d been a long fucking wait.

Now Phil is looking up at him again, and Clint smiles, a little dirty. He knows Phil likes him like this, sleepy and morning-pliant, and he stretches again, his undershirt riding up a little.

“That better not be a hand-written op report for a sex entrapment mission,” Natasha says into the pillow, and Clint’s face gets hot.

“Let’s either be asleep for private moments or awake, you two. Seriously, pick one.”

Natasha sits up, her hair a little fluffy above her head and some red marks across her bare arm from pressing into the creased sheets.

“Awake.” Phil and Natasha speak at the same time, and Clint doesn’t know where to look.

He picks Natasha, but it doesn’t matter because she’s locked eyes with Phil. It’s disarming, the way she has of being present and direct, but soft. It’s like the way she says, _Clint_ ; you can hear all the consonants of his name, but somehow the word is something soft in her mouth. (No one ever used his name at all, not before her. Certainly not at the circus, where it was _hey, you_ , or in the army, where it was only _soldier_.) He turns to see how Phil is doing with that gaze on him, and sees that Phil’s giving it right back to her.

“Okay, what?” Clint urges, impatient.

“Maybe not everything is for you,” Natasha says without breaking her gaze with Phil, and Clint’s face gets hot again.

Phil clears his throat. “I think what she’s saying is, Jesus, fuck, look at you; everything is about to be about you, and Natasha and I need a moment to make sure we’re good,” he says, tearing his eyes from hers at the end and tilting his head at Clint. It’s familiar and intimate, and Clint remembers when he started noticing _Coulson’s_ little gestures—like the way Phil would come and check on him in the range—and how Clint didn’t know what to call the feeling those gestures gave him but he wanted to make them happen again and again.

Natasha gets onto her knees, stretches up to the ceiling, and collapses back onto the bed, limbs sprawled out and her curled knuckles landing against Clint’s thigh, and yeah, this will be very hard to recover from. “We’re good as long as that’s not office work,” she says and rolls towards Clint, body still languid but eyes clear and sharp on Clint’s face. She doesn’t remove her hand.

So that hasn’t changed since last night, then. _I’m going to fuck you tomorrow, Clint._

Phil clears his throat from his spot on the floor. “It’s not office work; it’s—”

“A contract,” Clint finishes. He’s initiated a sexual relationship with Phil Coulson already and knows how this works.

Natasha raises her eyebrows.

“It’s not exactly a contract, either, but basically, yes,” Phil says. “This will be easier if you both list the things you like and don’t like, what you’ve wanted and,” his voice trails off for a moment to ensure he has their attention. “What you don’t want to leave without doing,” he finishes pointedly.

“What about you?” Natasha asks him through a yawn, her body still stretched out on the bed next to Clint’s.

“Why, Romanoff, I didn’t know you _like_ liked me,” he jokes.

She props herself up to look at him. “Look, it’s not hard to tell you’re more on one end of the spectrum than your boyfriend is, but you’re not fucking getting out of this and making Clint and me do the heavy lifting while you sit it out at HQ like usual.”

Clint’s muscles tense. Phil’s not going to let her get away with that. He levels a look at her. “Being a handler is a lot more than waiting around at Headquarters, and you’d do well to remember that your lives are in my hands over that radio line.” Clint can see what Phil can’t: Natasha’s small grin. She’s fucking baiting him. _Jesus. Of course she is._

Phil continues. “I control the range of the missions, the personnel, the pacing. I’m not ‘sitting on the sidelines,’ and you know it.”

Natasha props herself up to look at Phil. “You control the range of the mission, the personnel, the pacing?” she reiterates, each word dripping with innuendo, and Phil colors. Clint bites his lip to keep himself quiet, to stop the bubble of laughter from coming out. It isn’t often he gets to see Phil played, and Natasha is the master, but still; she doesn’t usually dare.

“It’s not like this is a mission,” Phil backpedals, and Natasha tilts her head to look up at Clint.

“He said he was good at being in charge, that he’s integral to what you and I do. That I’d—what was it? I’d best not forget it.” She draws out each word. “I’d say that’s pretty involved, wouldn’t you, Barton?”

A sudden surge of affection for both of them rises in Clint’s chest as he grins down at her. She’s just so fucking good, and so fun, and she’s working to include Phil when she doesn’t have to. Meanwhile, Phil wants Clint to make a list of what kind of sex he wants to have with someone who’s _not_ Phil. He’s going to write down things like _Natasha sucking me off_ , and _my face in her tits_ , and it’s not just tolerated; it’s invited, understood.

It reminds him of his own contract with Phil, his own requests. _Leave me here in a specific position and make me hold it for you. Make me wait for you, but then come back and—just, yeah. Just come back._ Phil didn’t shame him, didn’t even blanch. He did it, and he came back.

Clint pushes up from the bed, his fingers skimming over Natasha’s hand, and he walks to the bathroom to pee and to collect himself.

When he comes back out, they’re sitting cross-legged on the ground together, heads bent over the paper. It’s fucking charming, is what it is. Phil’s got stubble he never allows to grow along his jaw, and Natasha’s eye makeup is in strangely attractive smudges under her eyes, and they’re both in thin shirts. They look up at him as he comes towards them.

Clint licks his lips and begins. “I like being told what to do. If you know what you want I can make it happen.” Natasha makes a very quiet noise. “And I don’t like being mocked. At all. Pain’s okay—but not too much and not too long.”

Phil has a private smile on his lips as he scribbles things on the sheet, and Natasha’s lips are parted a little. Clint likes them like that, likes having made him smirk and having made her composure drop a little.

His mind reaches back to the bathroom where he let it play out in his head. Natasha’s mouth on his dick and Phil instructing her on how to make it good for him, her hands holding his hips down and Phil’s hands restricting Clint’s arms over his head.

There are a lot of things he wants to do, if they’re game.

Natasha says, “Okay, but, like, sex acts. What do you—”

“Your mouth on me; I want that,” and to her utter credit, she doesn’t react. “And fuck; I’d love to fuck you if you’d let me,” Clint says, and it’s true. It’s been simmering under his skin since his fingers felt where her thighs get soft close to her entrance last night in the bathroom. He wants to reach inside her, figure her out, then drive into her with his dick, part her, loom over her, snap his hips and make her cry.

“Natasha, do you also want to do any of those—” Phil begins.

“I’m open to them,” she says, grinning a little at Clint.

“That’s a start,” Clint murmurs back.

“Come here, Clint,” Natasha says, his name soft in her mouth. “Right here.”

He does, kneeling in front of them both. “What do _you_ want to do?” he asks her.

“A lot.” She looks at his neck and tilts her head.

Clint waits, still kneeling. He can be patient.

She glances at Phil and sighs, almost rolling her eyes at herself. _This should be good_ , Clint thinks. “I want to watch you. The two of you. I...” she stops, swallowing, her face coloring slightly at the admission. “I want to see what you’re like. Together.”

Phil clears his throat. “I thought this was about you two,” he starts.

“No,” she interrupts. “You asked what I want, what I don’t want to leave without,“ she says, with a dark look at Clint that goes straight to his dick. “It’s fine if you don’t want to show me, but you asked, and I’m telling you. If you’re okay with it, then yeah, it’s one of the things I want on my list.”

Phil is writing; presumably he’s recording what she’s saying, but his cheeks are pink, too, and Clint reaches out, stilling Phil’s hand and holding him by the wrist, rising up to lean into his space. Clint is, after all, pretty eager to give either or both of them what they want.

He gets his mouth on Phil’s, and he’s so hungry for it, he groans into him and hooks a hand in the neck of Phil’s undershirt. It’s time for someone to fucking touch him. He feels his dick filling out, and he rotates his hips, stretching his boxers over his erection and getting the front hole to catch on his dick. Phil is allowing this; he’s letting Clint come over all demanding, and Clint knows it won’t last, so he takes it while he can.

Or perhaps he’s pushing so that Phil really _will_ show her.

He lets go of Phil’s shirt for a moment to help his dick poke out of the front of his boxers, and then he crawls forward so that he can press it against Phil’s stomach, bracketing Phil’s head with his hands against the wall. He has to break his mouth away from Phil’s to press his hips closer. They’re both staring at his dick; it’s rubbing against Phil’s skin where the shirt rode up, and Phil says from beneath him, a little breathless, “Sometimes...” He swallows. “Sometimes we’re like this.”

“What happens next?” Natasha asks, her voice dry, not moving her eyes from Phil’s stomach.

Phil shifts a little and presses his erection up so that Clint can feel it. “Get it out,” he says to Clint, and Clint doesn’t like to keep him waiting, but he wants something.

He lets out a breath and asks, “Can she? Please.”

Phil looks up at Clint, pupils blown, and he nods, his mouth just slightly open, and Clint pushes his dick hard against Phil’s stomach.

“Tash,” Clint says in the way that means _come right now_ , and he begins to make small rocking motions against Phil’s skin.

She unfolds her body and reaches underneath Clint. Clint locks his eyes on Phil’s face, and when Phil’s eyes drop closed and his mouth goes a little slack, Clint knows she’s touching him, and arousal courses through him, stronger than before. He gets out, “Yeah.”

He lets go of the wall with one hand and grabs ahold of the fabric of Natasha’s shirt right at her breasts, pulling her closer so he can get his mouth on her. She’s not sucking lightly like she did the night before; she tilts her head and attacks his mouth with her lips and teeth, her arm working under him. He opens to her, tries to suck on her tongue or get any kind of traction, but she’s writhing against his mouth and he unfurls his hand at her shirt and rubs his palm across her breasts.

Natasha breaks away from the kiss and both her hands come up to guide his, grabbing him at the wrist and rubbing his hand hard over her tits. “Clint,” she says against his jaw, and it’s like she’s pleading with him to do something. “Clint. You guys, fuck,” she says, almost laughing, and dives back in towards his face for another bruising kiss, still rubbing her chest against his hand.

“Up,” Phil says, pushing his hips up just slightly to get Clint’s attention, and Clint sucks on Natasha’s lower lip for just one second more before letting it pop out of his mouth as he pulls back.

Natasha lets out a little breathless sound of disappointment, which warms Clint all over, but Phil gives her a sharp look and her mouth closes, and Clint says, “Fuck.”

Phil doesn’t look at him; he’s focused on her completely. When he speaks, Clint recognizes his tone from countless debriefings, both pre-op at work, and before playing at home. “You already know how we are, don’t you.” It comes out like a soft accusation. She nods. “And you just want to see it.”

“You have no idea, sir,” she says, and Clint feels himself sink into a light sub-space.

“Get on the bed, both of you,” Phil says in that voice, and Clint’s chest is tight and hot. It’s so, so good to be here, to be in this space where he absolutely can’t fuck up; where Phil knows what he wants, and Clint always, always knows how to give it to him. He’s heady with anticipation, with the surety that he will completely satisfy Phil. How good it will feel when he does so.

Clint sprawls on the bed on his back, and a burst of euphoria washes over him. He closes his eyes and smiles as he feels the bed dip where Natasha is climbing on beside him.

“Clint, Clint,” he hears Phil say, and he opens his eyes to see Phil walking over to him, standing next to the bed. His hand flutters across Clint’s arm, and Clint rolls towards him, pressing his face against the boxers across Phil’s thigh.

“Hey, Clint,” Phil says, a little more sternly, and Clint looks up at him. “Did you drop? Because wait, I don’t want you in sub-space for sex with Natasha. Clint,” he says again, and it’s so concerned-sounding that Clint tries very hard to focus on whatever problem Phil needs him to solve.

“No, it’s fine,” Clint tries to say, and Phil looks over Clint’s head at something, like he’s checking in with Natasha, and then he crouches down so that his face is closer to Clint’s.

“Hey, listen,” Phil says, taking Clint’s hand. He kisses it and holds it next to his mouth. Clint runs his fingertips along Phil’s stubble. It feels so fucking good. “I didn’t mean to make you drop. I want you to come back up for this thing with Natasha.”

Clint blinks. Yes, that makes sense; Phil wants Clint following his own passions, his own desires—and hers—not Phil’s. But something in him fights the call to come up. _It feels so good here, and it doesn’t happen that often. Hasn’t happened for months. Let me. It’ll feel so good for you, too. She said she wanted to see._

Phil sighs. “She did, didn’t she?” Clint looks up at him again, somewhat surprised to realize that he’d spoken out loud.

Clint sits up, sliding his legs off the bed, and takes Phil’s hands in his as Phil stands. “Let me. Let me, like this, first. With you,” Clint says. “And then after, I’ll come up.”

He wants to push his face into Phil’s stomach, breathe hot and wet against Phil’s skin, make Phil want to use him like this just as much as Clint wants to be used. But instead of shamelessly sucking on Phil’s skin, he looks up, licks his lips, and holds Phil’s gaze, patient and still.

Phil nods, his hand suddenly wound in Clint’s hair. He pulls Clint’s head back and looks him over, hungry, and Clint feels a thrill rush through his body from his scalp to his fingertips and toes.

“Best party ever,” Natasha says, almost like a sigh, and Phil looks over Clint’s head again at her, letting the tiniest of smiles crack around his mouth.

“Natasha, may I tell you what to do during this part? You can still watch, even if you say no. But if you say yes, I’ll be very, very pleased, because it’s something I’ve wanted from you for a long time.”

Clint closes his eyes and waits.

“Yes, sir,” she says. “You may, and you’ll know soon enough if I don’t like it,” she adds a little darkly, and Phil laughs.

“Yes, but don’t want you to break my neck showing me.”

“All right,” she agrees. “I’ll use my big girl words so it’s not confusing for you.” 

"'No,’ for example, or ‘I don’t want to,’ are phrases I understand really well.”

“Hmm,” Natasha murmurs, and Phil raises his eyebrows, questioning. “No, it’s fine. Noted. Now. What do you want from me?”

Clint tries to push his face into Phil’s stomach, groaning. Phil still has him by the hair, though, and pulls his head back.

“I’m not ready for you yet, Clint. If I let you do that, I’ll end up fucking you in about thirty seconds, and I don’t want that yet. Understand?”

“God. Yes,” Clint says.

“I’m letting go, and I want you to stay seated right here, and I want you not to touch me; don’t make me pull your head back. Can you do that?”

Clint holds himself very still and looks up, not pressing forward any longer.

“Good,” Phil says, and he indulges Clint by pulling down Clint’s lower lip with a finger for a moment before stepping back two paces. “Natasha, I want you against the headboard, where you can see.” She scoots into position. “And when I say your name and ask you a question, I want you to answer it correctly. Do you understand? Do you have any questions?”

Clint doesn’t know how Natasha is keeping so cool at this. Every word coming from Phil feels like his dick is being stroked. The more rules he gives, the better it feels, but there’s a limit to how bossy Phil actually enjoys being, so they’ve always tried to strike a middle ground. Clint turns to look at her, because that’s allowed—it’s got to be—and she’s grinning, sitting with her knees out and ankles crossed; she’s taken off the skirt. She says, “What if I don’t know how to answer it correctly, sir?”

“You just say the truest thing you can, and it will be enough. Got it?” he says.

“Uh, you do realize that isn’t what I normally do,” she says.

Phil cocks his head. “What don’t you normally do?”

“Say the truest thing,” she says. When Phil doesn’t answer right away, she adds, “But I will try it, here. If you want me to.”

That seems to please Phil. “Good. You’re already doing fucking phenomenally by telling me that.”

Clint watches her long enough for her to look back at him, and it feels familiar; it feels like they’ve done this a hundred times before, and maybe they have. Just not quite in this way.

“I’m going to shave and shower. Clint, I want you on the ground in a headstand against the wall ‘til I come back out. Natasha?” he asks, looking up at her as Clint moves to the floor, careful not to touch Phil as he passes, and kicks his feet up overhead. “Natasha, now. What do you feel, now?” Phil says.

“Oh! I, uh ... I feel confused,” she says with a glance at Clint.

“He likes to be told to wait,” is all Phil says before pulling off his shirt and boxers and heading into the bathroom, revealing several of his scars to Natasha for probably the first time.

They _can_ talk, but it’s not easy for Clint do it upside down, and so they pass several minutes mostly in silence while Phil moves around in the shower. The shower turns off and the sink turns on. Clint is sure Phil’s almost done, and he can hear his blood pounding in his head; it’s almost louder than Natasha’s voice when she murmurs, “Clint.”

His eyes flash up to hers; she’s crawled across the bed and is looking down at him. He blinks. “Yeah?”

“Do something for me. I don’t know what he’s going to ask you to do, but will you do one thing for me?”

Clint’s not sure about that. “I’m open to it,” he says after a moment with a little smile, echoing her words from before. “What do you want?” he asks.

“Bite him. Bite him on his hip or his arm; I don’t care. Bite him hard enough that he makes a sound.”

“I thought you didn’t like biting,” he grits out, blood pumping through his head. He recalls her pulling away the night before. _Don’t bite me_ , she'd said.

“Yeah, I’m not asking you to bite _me_. Will you do it?”

He looks up at her. She’s kneeling on the bed, her legs parted, and he can see dark hair where her thighs meet, and he stares for a moment before looking back at her face. He licks his dry lips. “Okay, yeah.”

The water turns off and she crawls back to her spot against the headboard just as the bathroom door opens and Phil walks out, naked and mostly toweled off, skin pink and face smooth, dick half hard and hanging in front of him.

He pauses, looking at them, and says, “This is how it feels when you do what I tell you,” he says. “It makes me feel good. You two make me feel good.”

“Wow,” Natasha says, sounding a little breathless.

“Thank you, sir,” Clint grits out.

“Against the headboard, Barton,” Phil says, and Clint scrambles up to the bed as Phil follows behind him. It’s kind of a jumble, since Clint’s head is spinning as the blood drains out, but all of a sudden, he’s pressed against the headboard next to Natasha, and Phil is crowding over him, his arms against the wall above the bed and his knees on either side of Clint.

“Let’s try it wordlessly,” Phil says like the most serious joke anyone’s ever told. “What does this mean, Romanoff?” He presses his hips to Clint’s face, his cock pushing hard along Clint’s jaw. Clint tries to move his head to get it in his mouth but Phil’s pushing against him too hard, moving this way and that, keeping Clint’s jaw from opening where it would need to.

“You want him to open his—” she starts, almost with an eye-roll in her tone, as though the answer is obvious, but Phil cuts her off.

“Tell him,” he orders, slowing his rocking and holding his dick up to Clint’s lips. Clint’s head is fuzzy and he tries to lean forward but a knee is pressed against his chest, pining him back against the headboard, and he lets out a lungful of air in a _whoosh_.

“Clint, he wants you to open your mouth,” Natasha says, and Clint might feel dizzy, but he can hear that all traces of eye-rolling have left her tone.

“No, his mouth is already open. Think,” Phil says. Now he’s beginning to stroke himself, just inches from Clint’s face, and Clint doesn’t want that; there’s a limited number of strokes before Phil comes, and Clint wants to feel them all.

“He wants me to—” Clint begins, but Phil’s dick hits him across the jaw.

“Shit, Phil,” Natasha says breathlessly, twisting to face them directly. Phil keeps alternating between pressing too hard against Clint’s face and then pulling his dick back while holding Clint still with his knee at Clint’s chest.

“Come on, Natasha, or I’m going to come without getting what I want,” Phil says, jerking himself faster, and Natasha rubs her hands on her thighs.

Clint strains forward with a little whine to give her a hint, and she lets out a breath. “Beg,” she says, “he wants you to—”

“Tell him _what to do_ , or I swear to God, Natasha...” Phil grits out.

“Clint. Clint,” she says quickly. “Beg him, Clint. Now. Ask for it. Ask for it. Jesus.”

“Come on, Coulson,” Clint says. “Fuck my mouth. Come on.”

Natasha lets out a little irritated sigh like he’s not doing it right, but Phil is sweeping his eyes over Clint, taking in Clint’s body—flushed, sweaty, and immobilized—like he wants to eat him. This is the kind of begging Phil Coulson likes. Slutty, cocky begging. Phil is patient, humble, even in charge. But Clint... Clint is none of those things. And it’s exactly how Phil likes him.

“Shut my mouth with your cock. Come on. I’ll let you fuck my face. I want it down my throat. Don’t you want—” Clint says, but suddenly Phil sticks his fingers in Clint’s mouth, tangling them in Clint’s tongue to stop his speech. He hooks them along Clint’s jaw and pulls Clint’s mouth open, gently, before shoving his cock in Clint’s mouth, not gently at all.

Clint moans around it. For a moment, Phil doesn’t move, and Clint can feel Phil’s pulse beating in his cock, filling up Clint's mouth. He brings his hands up around Phil’s back and grabs him by the ass, pulling him forward, and then Phil says a short, “Yes,” to Clint, and then, “Good,” to Natasha, and grunts as he begins fucking Clint’s mouth.

No one talks for a minute or two while Clint does what he does best, lays whatever Phil wants out for the taking, and Phil claims it in as many ways as their position allows.

“Do you like seeing him this way?” he asks Natasha after some time, one hand splayed along Clint’s jaw, keeping him stretched open while Phil pushes his dick inside.

“Yes,” she says, her voice thick.

“Sometimes...” Phil says in between slow, rocking thrusts. “Sometimes we start like this and then he fucks me.”

Natasha shifts her body, and Clint can’t really turn to look, but he thinks she’s holding her hand against her cunt.

“I’m telling you this because I want you to know it, but you won’t get to see it today,” he says. “Why is that, Romanoff?”

His thrusts have gotten shallower and quicker, and Clint tries to suck as best he can, narrowing his lips to give Phil something to thrust into.

“Fuck, that’s it, Clint,” he says.

“Sir?” Natasha asks.

Phil is close. Clint squeezes his ass. Phil grunts softly and says, “Why won’t I show you that? Come on, tell me, and I’ll come.”

Clint makes a noise that’s more like a whine than a moan. He’s so hard.

Natasha sits up a little straighter. “If I get it in one, you come however I say.”

Phil stills his hips for a moment at her unexpected challenge, looking at her over his arm that’s braced against the wall. “Yeah, okay.” He wipes his brow on his upper arm. “You get it in one, and you earn that.”

“I want to see it on his lips. That’s where.”

“Fucking call it then,” Phil says, his voice breathless and pained as he pushes his cock shallowly into Clint’s mouth again.

Natasha waits a moment before answering. “Because he’s going to fuck me instead, and you want to see that.” Her voice is so calm and so clear, her body so still, that Clint knows instantly her blundered guessing about the begging was deliberate—not malicious, but exploratory. She wanted to push them, see what Phil would do, what she could find out. Clint is momentarily consumed by appreciation for her, and suddenly Phil is gasping and pulling his cock out of Clint’s mouth, his bitter semen pulsing against Clint’s lips and chin.

Clint closes his eyes and begins to lick the come off his lips when he feels Phil’s firm hand on his jaw again. His eyes flash open.

Phil moves to sit back on Clint’s hips, knees still straddling Clint’s torso where his wet dick lies softening against Clint’s chest. “Wait,” he says, drawing in lung-fulls of air, and Clint closes his mouth immediately, sucking on the small taste of come on his tongue.

Natasha rises on her knees and hooks a hand around Phil’s neck. “You,” she says, reaching in and kissing him a little slowly at the corner of his mouth. Her other hand is flat against her chest, and she pulls away from him, shaking her head just slightly, like she doesn’t believe Phil is real. “You’re stunning,” she says.

Phil keeps one hand on Clint’s jaw and brings his other hand up to grip her forearm where it rests against his neck. He leans in and kisses near her ear. “Jesus, I’m your handler and I’m still underestimating you.”

She laughs, a little thick and a little low, not the bright false laugh she uses sometimes at HQ or even with the team. It’s the laugh Clint only ever hears her make with him, and he feels a little proprietary about her sharing it with Phil. Come to think of it, he feels a little proprietary about Phil, too. He _is_ stunning; Natasha is right to tell him, but something isn’t happening that Clint desperately needs to happen, _didn’t he do it right?_ and fuck, he can feel little pinpricks of pressure under his eyelids where he’s closed them quickly.

Something must show on his face, because Phil’s on him, pulling him down to lie flat on the bed, stroking his chest and snuggling into his neck, their bodies stretched out together. “You’re criminally good at that,” he says into Clint’s ear, and Natasha lays down on Clint’s other side, eyes bright as she stares a moment at Clint’s messy mouth.

“You’re a showoff, is what you are,” she says with affection and leans in to lick along his mouth. He opens to her, their tongues stroking and tasting Phil’s come between them. Kissing always feels amazing after being fucked in the mouth; Clint’s lips that worked so hard are now getting attended to, and this—this is what he needed, what he always needs, coming back up. Hands light on his skin, a grateful mouth against his, kind words in his ear.

All of a sudden, he remembers. “Oh,” he says, a little muffled, into her mouth. “I forgot. I’m so sorry.”

She bites lightly at his jaw and says, “Clint, it’s fine. Jesus, you did amazing.”

Phil lifts his head and raises an eyebrow at them, but instead of answering him, Natasha says, “Couslon, do something for me, will you?”

He allows the deflection. “Yeah, tell me.”

She smiles. “Follow me.”

And she moves her teeth down to Clint’s neck, pulling over the thin skin near his ear with her teeth. Phil watches until she gets to Clint’s collarbone, and then brings his mouth to Clint’s jaw on the other side, mirroring her movements with gentle nips until, like synchronized dancers, they begin tugging in unison at his collarbone with their teeth.

“Oh,” Clint lets out, lifting his hands over his head and letting his eyes fall shut. Coming up has never felt this amazing. They work evenly and slowly, and always together, and his whole torso gets worked over lightly by their mouths and hands. His nipples, each rib, his belly, his hips. And when their mouths simultaneously meet at the soft skin above his pubic hair, he reaches down and presses on their heads, presses their faces into his skin as they bite hard enough to leave marks and he cries out when Phil’s hand wraps around his hard dick.

“No,” he says, a little panicked, and sits up onto his elbows. “I want ... I want your turn now,” he says to Natasha. She rocks back onto her knees.

“Well, that’s the thing about sex entrapment; I'm the one who has to come last,” she says, and Phil laughs. They both look at him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, still almost giggling. “It’s just. Sex entrapment. When has a mission ever involved sex entrapment, right?”

Clint digs his fingers into Phil’s knee where he can reach him. Surely Phil can’t be that stupid about Natasha’s life before SHIELD.

“What?” he says, and looks up. Natasha is staring steadily at him. “Oh, god, I’m ... I’m stupid,” he says.

She takes a breath. “Yes. Yes, you are. But this is nothing like that.” She runs her hand along the comforter. “This is a game—a game we are choosing to play because we want to. But yeah, the entrapment part of the game ends when I come. That door will open if Stark’s kink technology is legit.”

It hits Clint heavy in his chest. They’re here because of a stupid accident—a game designed for someone else—and they’ve chosen to solve it this way, but once they do, it’s over.

“Well, I have a solution to who goes next, then,” Clint says, crawling towards Natasha.

“Yeah?” She lets out a little laugh, but it comes out slightly breathless, and he presses his face to her chest, mouthing her tits through her shirt.

“Yeah. Us,” he says against the thin fabric, and he reaches under her, yanking her legs out and pulling her flush up to him, her knees straddling his hips, almost across his lap.

She bends her head down to kiss him. Her mouth tugs at his lips ‘til he opens, and it’s good. It feels normal and familiar – have they really not been pressed together like this before? _Why not_ , and _fuck_ , and _good_ , are the things Clint thinks as she unfolds her legs and links her ankles behind him, rubbing her entrance down against his cock.

He laughs a little at the rush of arousal that pulses in his dick. It’s a little like the feeling of getting out of the headstand and letting his blood equalize through his body.

One of her hands stills in his hair and they study each other for a moment. She smirks after a beat and puts a knee on the bed to pivot them around. All of a sudden they’re lying the other way on the bed and she’s laid out in front of him, her legs still hooked around his waist, and his body remembers that move from the mats, how much she can do when she has room to work.

“Is this going to ruin sparring for us, Barton?” she asks.

“We can still spar, right?” he says, throwing a look over to where Phil has moved, sitting up against the headboard.

“That’s not sparring,” Phil says. “That’s you babysitting me in the ring. What you two do is something completely different.”

Clint looks down at her and drops wet kisses along her jaw, her mouth. “I honestly don’t know, but can I just,” he breaks off and reaches between them to feel her. He finds her slit with his finger, and there it is, that moment of parting that he’s always loved so much. He drops his head to her neck and lets out a little groan as he runs his fingertips up and down her entrance.

“Oh,” she says in a small surprised voice, and he wants to hear her say that again, so he strokes and pushes and strokes and pushes until her voice breaks over the word, “Clint,” and he presses inside, careful to go straight in ‘til he knows where she wants the friction. He was good at this once. He only gets one time with her, and he’s not going to waste it.

“Show me. Like this?” he asks, two fingers stroking straight to the back of her walls again and again.

“Phil, Jesus,” she says, and Clint laughs.

“It’s Clint fucking you, Tash,” he says.

“Oh, my God, I know. Shut up,” she whines. He’s got his hand facing up now, curling against her front walls as he pulls his hand out after each thrust. “I meant, Phil, Jesus, you—” she cuts herself off, groaning for a moment, and then lets out a series of breathless moans in time with Clint’s strokes. Her arm flies out and knocks into Phil’s leg, and she flails around ‘til she has her hand wrapped tightly around Phil’s wrist.

“‘Phil, Jesus,’ what?” Phil asks, stroking her forearm with his free hand.

“Fuck, never fucking mind,” she says. “Clint. Clint, stop, God.”

Clint stops, pulling his fingers out, and she sits up, kissing his forehead, his nose, his lips. She presses her forehead to his and rocks her head side to side a little. “I’m close. We have to stop,” she says when she finds her voice again. She lets out a tense sigh of frustration. “This was stupid.” She looks over her shoulder back at Phil and says accusingly, “You’re the strategist, Coulson; I blame you.”

“Hey, I have no clue what’s going on down there, for the record,” Phil says, and Clint laughs, his body shaking against Natasha’s.

“Oh, shut up,” Natasha says to Phil. Clint’s cock is still hard against her ass, and his fingertips are still resting against her entrance. He's never fucked a woman in the ass before, and that's not what he's going to do today either, but imagining it for a second makes him grow impossibly hard against her. He experimentally touches her clit and she kisses him, licking at his lips 'til they open.

“Mmmm,” she moans into his mouth while he circles her clit. “Seriously, Clint, fuck,” she says against his lips.

“Just, shh,” Clint says back, pressing his fingers hard against her, and she shudders, squeezing her eyes shut.

“You said you wanted her mouth on you,” Phil says. “It’s even on the list,”

“Fuck the list,” Natasha and Clint say together, and Phil laughs.

“Okay, okay.”

“Tash,” Clint says into her hair near her ear, his hands running up her sides and pulling her blouse up and off.

She shivers. “What?” she asks, pressing their chests together and letting out a tense breath at the touch. “This sucks,” she adds quietly.

He pulls back so he can look at her face. “I’m going to fuck you now. You can do this,” he says, and her eyebrows make a little worried knit above her nose that he kisses once before rocking her onto her back. He pushes closer and silently reminds himself to not crowd her. He pulls at her legs ‘til they’re stretched up between them, folding her over. “Like this,” he asks. “Can we?”

“Yeah, come on, come on,” she says, her voice needy with desire, and he’s a heartbeat away from pushing in when Phil speaks, tossing a handful of condoms onto the sheets.

“So did you guys want to use these?” For a tiny moment, Clint is mad at him, not for the suggestion about the condoms, but just for the intrusion, any intrusion at all, and then Natasha reaches for one of them and her arm gets tangled in the sheet and she freezes.

“I got it. Let me,” Phil murmurs as he pulls the sheets out of her way.

“Thanks,” she says, her hands working on the wrapper, and Clint’s fleeting resentment disappears.

Clint grabs it from her and rolls it on. He presses in.

“Uuhhhh,” she kind of whines, and Clint feels himself slot inside of her, and he hikes her legs up again so he can fuck straight into her, the way she liked it with his hand, but more; he’s filling her up. Her ass rises off of the bed to meet him, and he fucks into her, into the wet grip of her, and she folds her legs to her body, letting him loom over her. He’s careful, so careful not to crowd her, but there’s plenty of room, and she uses it like always, rolling him over until she’s on her back again and her head is in Phil’s lap.

Phil strokes her hair, and Clint can’t stop fucking into her; he could do it forever and he knows he’s supposed to come, knows she’s holding on for him, but he doesn’t want to stop at all.

“Do it, Clint,” she says, and he puts his face against Phil’s hand in her hair.

“I am. Fuck, I am,” he grits out.

“No, now, what I told you. _Phil_. Come on.”

And he doesn’t know what she means and then suddenly he does. He shifts his body, lifting himself up so that he can get to Phil’s inner thigh, right under Natasha’s head.

“Yeah, do it,” she says, and she tilts her hips up so they can still fuck while he reaches forward. He presses his face into Phil’s thigh, captures a bit of skin between his teeth, and bites hard.

Phil lets out a loud yelp of surprise, and his hands are tight in Clint’s hair, and Natasha growls, “Fuck, yes,” and that’s it; he feels his orgasm spill from his balls straight through his dick. He sees her hand between them, rubbing herself as he fucks her through his orgasm, and when he’s done, he feels Phil’s hand cupping his face, and then Natasha’s pants become cries. She’s lifting her torso up, as though being pulled up by marionette strings, and she pulses around him, coming hard and loud, just like he thought she would.

He remembers just in time not to cover her with his body, and he collapses next to her, kissing her shoulder while Phil strokes his hair. Her breasts are right there, rising and falling with her deep breaths, and fuck, he didn’t touch them near enough. He brings a hand up to slide it across her skin, but she sits up, scooting a little away from them and wiping her fingers below her eyes.

“Tash. Hey, Natasha,” Clint says, but he can’t keep her here just because he wants her to stay. That’s not how it works.

“I’m just... I’m going to go,” her voice trails off as she gestures towards the bathroom, and she’s gone.

Clint rolls onto his side and takes off the condom, tying it and handing it to Phil, who wraps it in a Kleenex and lobs it into the trashcan.

The shower turns on just as the panel becomes a door again, and JARVIS speaks.

“Congratulations, you are free to go. The door is still inaccessible from the outside, but you may unlock it and leave whenever you wish with your access codes at the touchpad,” it says.

Clint tries to remember all the angry things he had to say to Stark, but he can’t think of any of them right now, his head in Phil’s lap and Natasha scrubbing their scents off her body as fast as she possibly can in the next room.

As usual, Phil handles it. “Thank you, JARVIS,” he says. “Is anyone in the mansion aware that we’re in here?”

“Not yet, sir. Mr. Stark didn’t truly wake up until Mr. Rogers put him on the plane to Paris this morning, but Ms. Potts is expected onsite in thirty minutes.”

Phil’s hand pauses in Clint’s hair like he’s expecting Clint to say something. But there’s something in Clint’s throat, and he doesn't trust his voice to work properly.

“It wouldn’t be prudent to alert anyone, JARVIS,” Phil says. “We will speak to Ms. Potts ourselves.”

“Quite right, sir,” JARVIS intones.

“Thank you, JARVIS. That will be all,” Phil says in his keep-the-peace voice.

“Good day, Agent Coulson, Mr. Barton, Miss Romanoff,” it says.

“ _Fuck off!_ ” comes a yell from the bathroom, and Clint sits up.

Clint’s not that clever, but his instincts earned him Natasha’s life one cold day in St. Petersburg when they were strangers trying to kill each other, and those same instincts are screaming at him now.

“I want this,” he says to Phil, gesturing to the bed where the three of them slept together, but meaning a lot more than that. “And it maybe isn’t what you signed up for and maybe you hate it as—I don’t know—as an idea, but I want it. I want her.”

Phil opens his mouth to speak but Clint cuts him off. “You said I could want her. Well, I do.”

“I know,” Phil says, wrapping his hand around his neck.

“I want you, too. I want this,” Clint says, gesturing again to the bed, hoping that Phil gets it.

“I know you do, Clint,” Phil says.

Something is hot in Clint’s chest, like fear, sudden fear, and it’s illogical because why should he be afraid when he’s with the only two people he trusts with his life in the world? But it’s because it’s them that he’s terrified.

The bathroom door opens, and Clint leaps off the bed to stand between Natasha and the exit. Natasha, wrapped in a towel, gets two steps out and sees Clint in the middle of the room. She hesitates, just for a split second, before resolutely gathering her clothes and hastily tugging them on. He wants to hold her; he wants very badly to push her against a wall and make her listen to him. 

“What if I lost you?” he says instead, swallowing, even though the words don’t come easy.

She looks up for a split second and then returns to buttoning her skirt.

“I thought that. We were young, and I thought, what if I lost her? What if we tire of each other and it compromises people’s lives? What if I make the wrong call one day, and what if I lost her? Tash, that’s why I never...”

He forces himself to stay rooted in his spot, where there’s lots of room for her to work if she needs it. She finishes pulling on her blouse and looks up at him, sighing.

“Clint, that was a long time ago, and—” she begins.

“Stop. Do you want it, though? Now?” he asks her, his voice thick. He turns towards Phil, who's still on the bed. “Do you?” He looks back at Natasha. “Because I’m not done.”

Natasha’s hands fall still at her sides. It’s quiet for a long moment. Then she reaches down and throws Clint his boxers, rolling her eyes. “Stop distracting me,” she says with a glance at his body, as though joking will help. As though being clothed will help. Joking and being clothed and catching each other’s bodies on the job but never in the bedroom _hasn’t helped_. He grabs the boxers but doesn’t move.

“Are you coming to breakfast?” she asks.

“Do you want it?” he repeats, his voice softer. He holds very still. Clint is used to being patient.

She looks at Phil, who tilts his head and says, "I think there's a lot for us to talk about. I mean." He gestures to the bed. "Isn't there?" She nods, drawing her lower lip in between her teeth. She turns to Clint. “I...” she begins, and then cracks a small smile, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m open to it.”

That hot, tight thing in Clint’s chest begins to loosen, and he hears Phil let out a laugh.

“Okay. Okay, good,” Clint says, trying to breathe, trying to make his arms work, make his feet go through the leg holes of the boxers.

She walks over to the door and types her access code into the touch screen. “We’re going to need more lists, Coulson,” she says over her shoulder. “Possibly Venn diagrams.”

“Quit flirting with me,” Phil says dryly as the door opens and he and Clint scramble for the rest of their clothes, pulling them on and following her out of the room.

“So,” Clint says to her, “tell me about the arc reactor assassination plan. And how are we going to distract Rogers and Pepper?” he asks as the door shuts behind them.

"It requires you and me on the ground in Stark's lab, and Coulson on the radio. Think you'd like to order us around a little more, Coulson?" she asks, a small laugh coming out as they walk down the hallway towards the kitchen.

"Romanoff, you have no idea," Phil says, a little darkly, and Natasha's laughter cuts off. She turns around and has Phil against the wall in less than a second. Clint takes a step back to give her space to work. She kisses Phil, right on the mouth and Clint feels his dick begin to fill out again. "I've always _like_ liked you, Phil," she says, her voice low in his ear. "Or, _like_ liked you telling me what to do," she amends. 

Phil kisses her on the cheek and she shifts away, and they begin to walk down the hallway in front of Clint, bumping shoulders. 

"And you said this wouldn't be a party," Clint says. They turn back as they walk, and the smile they each give him is blindingly bright.

_The End._

**Author's Note:**

> My best head canon for these Avengers characters is Clint and Phil being boyfriends and Natasha being Clint's bff. I've also appreciated thinking about the OT3 possibilities, and yes, the "Barton's been compromised" scene def adds to it for me. :) Either way, though, I like the thought of Clint being very close to each of them in slightly different but overlapping ways. Natasha's reference to needing a Venn diagram isn't far off the mark. 
> 
> One day I got it in my head that I wanted Clint and Natasha, _as bff's_ , to have to face their underlying sexual attraction, but I've always thought Fuck or Die as a trope is a little cheap. It's a short cut for writers who perhaps don't want to do the work of selling the reader on a pairing, or perhaps the author wants to allow the characters All The Sex without holding them accountable for choosing it. If that weren't enough, there are also serious consent issues if people are forced to have sex or die (or some other consequence), even if you show underlying desire. Desiring someone doesn't mean you would necessarily choose have sex with them. (An important aside: checking that your partner shows physiological signs of arousal also does not constitute a "yes," fyi. #psa)
> 
> I couldn't get it out of my head, though, and I began asking my friends to rec Fuck or Die fics so that I could study how consent is handled. A plan began to form in my head; one where no one made them do it, but the situation compelled them to face their feelings (if somewhat artificially). This is what I tried to accomplish with Tony's kink technology locking them in the room; I tried to show that Tony would never force someone to have sex against their will. The accident is that people got into the room who didn't know the safeword. It was a mistake on Tony's fault; a lack of preparation. But not intentional. He'd thought he'd worked it to be fun, safe, and consensual for himself and his lovers, and that's what it would have been had our three characters not somehow gotten in the room alone. (ha ha, notice I skipped the part that explained how that happened. #handwavingFTW)
> 
> It was also really important to me that they understood they didn't have to have sex. It's more that this opportunity brought their mutual desires to light and gave them a place to exercise them without having to wait or think too long on it. 
> 
> The lines about Natasha not liking to be crowded, restrained or trapped, and the accompanying reference to her spy work before SHIELD involving technically nonconsensual sex, was a way for me to acknowledge one small part of the consequences a person might experience from that kind of abuse in the past. She knows what it means to be violated, and to be forced to allow sex, as well as what it means to have sex be part of your job (which can be but doesn't always have to be a version of non-con). What she's doing here with Clint and Phil is not any of those things, and she knows it, and Clint knows it, and Phil needs it to be explained a little bit. I want the reader to know it, too.
> 
> There was no way, however, to get around the reality that Fuck or Die, even modified, is technically lazy character writing. I say this with new-found warm affection for the trope (when consent is handled well). It's certainly wish-fulfillment for external circumstances to compel long-hidden desires out in the open, but can't porn be wish-fulfillment? What's problematic for me is that usually irl we need to step up and claim or own the things we desire (I certainly did, and suffered a great consequence for doing so). I admit to lazy characters in this regard, and the ending scene where Clint stands up to claim his desire for this to continue was my nod to wanting them to have to ask for what they want.
> 
> ALL THIS SAID, I am very interested in discussing consent in erotic fiction, and would love to hear from any of you, publicly or privately, about your response to these ideas or to the fic. I am attempting to tackle something here that I admit I don't have a lot of direct experience with, and especially because of that, it's likely that I've gotten things wrong and/or hurt some readers. I want to know about it, and I promise you a listening ear, not a defensive response. I honestly invite being educated, but I don't mean to say you have the burden of explaining it to me if you don't want to. Even an "I didn't like how you handled x and I want you to know" would be okay with me. As would not responding, of course.
> 
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
